Australia not as deserving of presents as it was at past Christmases

If you tie up huge swathes of government funding for many budget cycles to come on the NBN, you can hardly complain when there is only loose change to spend on potentially economically beneficial transport infrastructure projects.

Perhaps even more than blowing the budget, what has made Santa consider Australia "naughty rather than nice" has been the dismantling of two decades of industrial relations reforms. The current Government's Fair Work Act rolled back not just the key aspects of Work Choices, but also aspects of the 1997 legislation, which the Howard Government negotiated with the Australian Democrats, and even some of Keating's 1993 reforms. Suddenly, the unions were back having a far bigger say in the Australian economy.

The decline in political courage is exemplified by the Liberal Party's lack of willingness to argue for industrial relations reform from the Opposition. The contrast with the 1980s is stark when both sides of politics regularly exhibited a crazy, brave approach to many of the big policy issues.

Of course, this year has also seen legislation aimed at imposing special taxes on carbon and mining profits, which are depressing enough in themselves, but are made more so by claims that they are examples of economic reform. Economic reform is when you do things that make your economy more competitive, such as floating the dollar or cutting tariffs - not when you impose extra costs on your economy.

It is almost as if Australians have taken a sudden dose of economic illiteracy tablets. Take the response to the RBA's decision to cut interest rates earlier this month, which had the tabloid media running a series of truly over-the-top attacks on the big four banks, for having the temerity to wait a couple of days to see if it was responsible to lower rates for borrowers. Given that the key cause of the GFC was the lax lending policies of overseas financial institutions, it hardly seems unreasonable for the banks to be cautious.

Politics in Australia seems to have become infantilised, as Government seeks more and more ways to deny citizens the right to make decisions about their own lives. So we get everything from the Bob Brown-inspired media enquiry threatening free speech, to the Andrew Wilkie-inspired attack on the freedom to gamble.

When Australia lost to New Zealand in 1985, there was the consolation that the Kiwis had been bowled to victory by one of the all-time greats in Richard Hadlee, and that with Roger Douglas as Finance Minister, their politicians were even more deserving of presents than we were. It is harder to identify sources for consolation now.

The one advantage that Australia does have is that because the grown-ups were in charge here for years longer than they were in many other countries of the world, and because we have been blessed with existing gifts such as the mining boom, we are in much better shape than other countries.

And after all, at Christmas time here we get warm sun and cricket; the basket case economies of Europe get neither. It is just our own recent naughtiness that causes us to get fewer presents than we otherwise might.